From Vision to Fruition: a new Lee Abbey Devon and Bible Society partnership

This article was published in the May to August 2025 edition of Rapport magazine.

Picture this: it is time for your annual summer camping holiday in England. This year the extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins join the festivities. Now imagine everyone enjoying a week of worship, family activities and outdoor adventure on the North Devon coastline. If you’ve envisioned a massive muddle of families on a field by the ocean, worshipping and fellowshipping for a week, you’ve captured the vision that inspired a week called ‘Encounter!’ at Lee Abbey Devon. It was the catalyst for a strong partnership between Lee Abbey Devon and Bible Society. The goal? Create an organic and worship-filled summer camp-style week on the Lee Abbey Estate for families of all ages.

The vision was a bold one, formed nearly three years ago by Gordon Crowther, then warden. Lead Chaplain, Tom Collins, explained that Lee Abbey Devon felt the call ‘to be a creative, burning-hot centre of faith, prayer and witness’ and that Gordon wanted a space for multigenerational family gatherings. Gordon wanted these families to gather together, grow closer to the Lord and have fellowship in a unique setting. While Lee Abbey has a year-round programme of retreats scheduled, so far no single event captured the essence of this family-centric week. ‘The hope is that it would be about encountering Jesus and making it possible for people of many stages and backgrounds of life, including people who maybe don’t come from a particular church background [to] find a festival environment more informal and hospitable’, said Gordon. He wanted to use the expansive property of Lee Abbey to host these families: the first year would be a ‘simple’ experiment, with the aim to build on that each year. Lee Abbey’s Operations Manager, Mark Scyner, described the long-term vision succinctly: ‘After five years, there will be people camping all around the place, self-catering. And everyone will converge on the field, and there will be wonderful worshipping in evenings and mornings and everyone encountering God in this space’.

Lee Abbey Devon could provide the setting, but they needed help establishing such a visionary goal. A full calendar of annual programmes already used all of Lee Abbey’s Community manpower – enter Bible Society. For many years the organisation led retreats at Lee Abbey. Their ministry felt a similar excitement about family evangelism and ministry, and Bible Society could offer more workers to help run the week. After Gordon floated his vision with Bible Society’s Andrew Ollerton during a retreat at Lee Abbey, the two organisations collaborated over the next months. By early 2023, both teams were on board to launch this new programme.

The first ever Encounter! week kicked off on 12 August 2024. The week was a tremendous testament to God’s provision. Registrations had been slim until late July, when there was a sudden rush of bookings. The entire week was covered in grace. As one guest wrote, ‘The speakers from Bible Society were excellent and their teaching very on-point for me! Our children loved their groups and it was a real blessing to have the option of a few organised activities’. Different tracks were offered through the morning: speaker sessions on the book of Ruth, seminars, a craft tent, and three children’s streams. Tom Collins, Mark Scyner and many others from Lee Abbey and Bible Society helped run the event. People could select which breakout session to attend, enabling guests to create a bespoke structure for their days. Teas and treats brought everyone together in the middle of the field, and the afternoons were deliberately kept simple for encounters.

Both Lee Abbey and Bible Society were very pleased with the result. Guests gave valuable feedback that has influenced the planning of future ‘Encounter!’ weeks. ‘The initial offering gave us optimism about how this could build’, reflected Gordon. Both teams have big plans for the coming few years: more emphasis on worship for all ages, modified utilisation of the field and eventually camping. While the first summer experience was limited to House and Beacon accommodation, the team is considering phase 1 of camping options to make the week accessible for more people. Ideally, families could eventually choose to self-cater and camp out.

Looking forward, Lee Abbey and Bible Society recognise the need to create an outside team of people to run Encounter! week. The vision of Encounter! needs a dedicated team to oversee the planning, innovation and implementation of ideas associated with this initiative. The search for this team of 10–20-strong Christians has already begun. University students, summer workers, youth leaders and people interested in ministry are welcome to inquire. The team needs creatives, self-starters and those with a vision for family ministry (if you or someone you know fits this description, send a CV to tomcollins@leeabbey.org.uk). As Mark Scyner summarised, ‘It’s about getting the right people on board to get us there’.

What started as a vision to minister to families and close the generational gaps that can unintentionally develop in ministry settings has turned into a multi-year effort to develop a week-long camping and outdoor retreat designed for all generations. Both Lee Abbey and Bible Society recognise that each year will see modifications and improvements to fulfil the original vision.

Grace Balkan, Publicity Team,
Digital Storyteller, Lee Abbey Devon